Twenty Boy Summer

by Sarah Ockler

  “I was in love with him forever — since I was, like, ten,” I confess.

  “Yeah,” she says. “You both were in love. I know that now. We were all so close, you know? I just didn’t see it coming until I read your — I’m sorry, Anna.”

  I close my eyes, fighting back the image of her hand on my journal. “It’s okay.”

  “The night we got back from the hospital,” she says, “when Mom and Dad were downstairs with your parents after they took you home, I went into his room. I still don’t know why — it felt like he was calling me or something.

  “Inside, everything was exactly as he’d left it that morning. His bed unmade. Dirty clothes on the floor. The frosting shirt from your cake fight weeks earlier — just like the one you have in your closet. It was hanging inside his closet door, blue and crusty. It’s probably still in there.”

  I smile, picturing Matt hanging his frosted shirt behind the door that night at the same time I was stuffing mine into its plastic bag in my room next door, totally freaked out about what had just happened.

  “I didn’t think you recognized it,” I say. “That day we went through my closet before the trip. You wanted me to throw it out.”

  “I didn’t recognize it that day. But once I saw the picture in your journal, it started to come together.

  “Anyway,” she continues, “that night after the accident, his room still smelled like him, you know? It was like I could lock myself in there forever and just keep breathing and telling myself that he would come back.

  “I sat on the end of his bed and looked through the stuff on his nightstand. Alarm clock. Half-empty glass of water. Loose change. Some books he was in the middle of reading. And the necklace.”

  “Are you serious?” I ask. “I always thought it was lost in the hospital or in the crash.”

  “No, he must have forgotten to put it on that morning. And the night of the accident, something told me to take it, so I did. I closed it up in my fist and cried myself to sleep in his bed. The next morning, I woke up in my own bed with the necklace wrapped around my hand. I couldn’t even remember why I took it, or how I got from his room to mine.

  “A few days later, Mom was wandering around the house in a trance, mumbling about the blue necklace — she wanted them to put it on him. I didn’t tell her I had it. I hid it in the pocket of an old coat where I knew she wouldn’t look, even on a decorating rampage. The same thing that told me to take it, told me to keep it secret. I felt terrible that Mom thought it was lost, but I knew there was some reason I wasn’t supposed to bury it with my brother. I just didn’t know why — until now.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, still shocked that she’d had the necklace all this time; that all along, she knew so much about the secret.

  She sets down her soda and pulls something from the desk drawer where she used to keep the cigarettes.

  “I mean, it’s yours, Anna. It’s always been yours.” She presses her fingers to my palm.

  My eyes move slowly from her face to the flat, cool object in my hand. There it is, small and unassuming, two leather cords holding a triangle of blue glass. History plays itself through my head like a movie — the cake, the kitchen sink, the necklace, the kiss, the text messages, the back of the house, the second kiss, the next and the next and the next, the stars, the books, the hall closet, the ice cream, the car, the hospital. My cheeks burn. I wait for the sadness to drown me, the tears to start.

  I wait.

  I wait.

  I wait.

  But… nothing.

  I’m — okay. I think about Matt and the blue triangle always on his collarbone and feel a tightness in my chest, but no tears. No crushing sense of loss. No landslide of sad rocks.

  I’m okay.

  I close my hand around the necklace and feel an overwhelming surge of — calm, I guess. And love. And forgiveness. And closure. A beginning, an ending, and a new beginning.

  “Thank you,” I whisper, stretching to put my arms around her for a long overdue hug.

  “So I guess we didn’t get to twenty, huh?” Frankie smiles, wiping her eyes.

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “Oh, well. You get at least five extra points for Sam.”

  Sam. The sound of his name reminds me of the smell of his skin, and the hair on my neck stands up.

  “You do realize I’m going to need all the details of this little rendezvous, right?” Frankie asks.

  “Francesca, I’m shocked!”

  “Oh, come on. You knew I’d make you spill everything eventually!”

  “No — I’m shocked that you used a word like ‘rendezvous’ correctly! And you even pronounced —”

  “And you’re trying to change the subject.” She laughs, erasing a leftover tear with her fingertip. It’s different this time — her laugh. Sad and a little bit serious, but raw and hopeful and honest, too. As the red glass of her bracelet sparkles against her tan skin, I finally understand it. There was never an old Frankie or a new Frankie. Everything that ever happened is just part of who she is; of who I am; of the best friendship that I’ve always loved.

  I press the blue glass triangle to my lips and smile for Matt, my best-friend-that’s-a-boy, my last goodbye to the brokenhearted promise I carried like my journal for so long. Somewhere below the black frothy ocean, a banished mermaid reads my letters and weeps endlessly for a love she’ll never know — not for a single moment.

  Before the trip, Frankie and I set out to have the Absolute Best Summer Ever, the summer of twenty boys. We’ll never agree on the final count — whether the boys from Caroline’s should be included in the tally, whether the milk-shake man was too old to be considered a “boy,” whether her tattooed rock star interlude was anything other than a rebound. But in the end, there were only two boys who really mattered.

  Matt and Sam.

  When I close my eyes, I see Sam lying next to me on the blanket that first night we watched the stars — the night he made me look at everything in a different way; the breeze on my skin and the music and the ocean at night. But I also see Matt; his marzipan frosting kiss. All the books he read to me. His postcard fairy tales of California, finally coming to life in Zanzibar Bay.

  When I kissed Sam, I was so scared of erasing Matt. But now I know that I could never erase him. He’ll always be part of me — just in a different way. Like Sam, making smoothies on the beach two thousand miles away. Like Frankie, my voodoo magic butterfly finding her way back home in the dark. Like the stars, fading with the halo of the vanishing moon. Like the ocean, falling and whispering against the shore. Nothing ever really goes away — it just changes into something else. Something beautiful.

  * * *

  Frankie smiles, arching her broken wing eyebrow expectantly. In this moment, sitting on her purple comforter with the sun shining on us through the window, I realize that we are lucky — lucky to be alive, just like everyone said.

  I slip the necklace into my pocket and take a deep breath.

  Don’t move, Anna Reiley. Right now, everything is perfect.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My heartfelt gratitude to all who have given me the inspiration, the encouragement, and the opportunity to write Twenty Boy Summer and achieve this unbelievable dream.

  To my editor, Jennifer Hunt, who believed in me enough to put up a fight and whose incredible talent for storytelling brought Anna Reiley’s journey to life. Thanks also to T. S. Ferguson and everyone at Little, Brown who helped make Twenty Boy Summer a real, live book.

  To Ted Malawer, my agent, who flawlessly navigated my stalker-esque e-mails and worked long hours to give me the best birthday news ever.

  To Lighthouse Writers Workshop, especially Jenny Vacchiano Itell, for your invaluable guidance; Andrea Dupree, my steadfast cheerleader; and Mike Henry, who asked, “Have you ever considered writing for young adults?” Thanks also to Bill Henderson, Jay Barry, Rachel Miller, Meredith Sale, GIS!, and all of my writing friends for the critiques, the encouragemen
t, and the literary shenanigans.

  To Mom and Dad, who persuaded me to write my own stuff after the E.T. incident of 1982; my brothers, Steve Ockler and Scott “I’m not ashamed to read girly YA books” Ockler; my family-in-law, for the Million Dollar Bims; Amy Hains, who never doubted; and all who asked, “When can I read it?” Um, now? Now’s good!

  And to my husband, Alex, who said, “Bims, you’re a writer!” Thanks for reminding me when I almost forgot. Here’s to those double rainbows, my love.

  Finally, I am forever grateful to my dear friends John and Margaret Moyer, and to all donor families. You have inspired this story. Thank you for saying yes.